UML2 Certification Guide

This is a short review of the book "UML2 Certification Guide - Fundamental & Intermediate Exams" by Weilkiens and Oesterreich.

The purpose of the book is to prepare for the UML exams of the OMG, a way to certify different levels of knowledge about the UML.

This book is NOT for learning UML. It does not focus on UML diagrams, but on the abstract syntax of UML as defined in the specification. The book is structured in three parts: an introduction that provides information about the history of UML, the OMG and the exams, and two main parts introducing the examination relevant knowledge for the OCUP Fundamental exam and the OCUP Intermediate exam, respectively.

Good:

• complete coverage of examination relevant parts of specification (at least the authors claim so)


• example questions


• price ok

Bad:

• not self-contained: concepts crucial for understanding the diagrams like union and subsets are not introduced at all, the stucture of the specification is not discussed (infrastructure, superstructure, mof, etc.)


• too many annoying little errors


• didactically not state of the art

Conclusion: If the book really covers exactly the material of the exams - as the authors claim - it is valuable in this respect. Further on several example questions are provided that may also be helpful. However, on the OMG site the examination relevant parts of the specification are also given as colored tables of contents. And since the book is not that good from a methodical point of view people that are familiar with reading specifications may not really need the book. However, since the price is ok I do not regret having bought it. But reading the specification is still necessary.

Further reading:

• UML2 Certification


• UML2 Specification